Most births are special to the people involved.
But this birth is a bit out of the ordinary. On October 31, 2022, in the American city of Portland, two children were born after waiting their turn for 30 years.
– I was five years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he has preserved that life ever since, he says.
– In a sense, they are our eldest children, even if they are our youngest children.
According to the National Embryo Donation Center, birth is historic. Fertilized eggs have never been frozen for long enough to result in a live birth, she writes Cnn.
– We weren’t trying to get eggs that have been frozen the longest, points out the father of the twins, Philip Ridgeway.
– We only wanted the ones who had waited the longest, he says.
A proud couple right after birth. The babies were born 30 years after the fertilized eggs were frozen.
Photo: NATIONAL CENTER FOR EMBRYO DONATION / HANDOUT / EPA
Donated eggs
The story of the pair of twins is going around the world.
The story begins on April 22, 1992. Then the fertilized eggs were frozen.
Rachel and Philip Ridgeway were just three and five when their twins were “conceived” by an anonymous couple using
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a treatment in which one or more eggs are taken from the woman’s ovaries, which are then fertilized by the man’s or donor’s sperm cells in a test tube, in vitro fertilization. The fertilized egg is then introduced into the woman’s uterus so that the egg can attach itself to the uterine lining. Further, development occurs as in normal fertilization. (Source:Spiren Fertility Clinic)
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But five eggs were never used by the couple.
So the couple eventually donated them to the National Embryo Donation Center in Tennessee in hopes that someone else would use them. For nearly three decades, these eggs lay dormant before Lydia and Timothy were born.
The center behind this is a private, Christian-led organization, which requires recipients to pass a “family assessment”.
According to CNN, one of the requirements is that couples must be biologically male and biologically female. They must also have been married for at least three years.
Had children before
Rachel and Phillip Ridgeway thus gained a large family. They already had four children. However, the twins were the first in the family to be born this way.
– We never thought we would have to have a certain number of children, says Phillip.
Of the five thawed eggs, two were non-viable. A total of three eggs were placed.
– We always intended that we will have as many (children) as God gives us, and when we heard about it, we thought it was something we could imagine doing.
Frozen eggs can be frozen largely indefinitely, according to couples doctor John Gordon.
– If you are frozen at almost minus 200 degrees, biological processes are essentially reduced to almost nothing. So the difference between being frozen for a week, a month, a year, a decade, two decades, it doesn’t matter, he says.
In Norway, fertilized eggs cannot be stored that long. Previously there was a five-year limit on archiving, but it was recently repealed.
